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| Conclusion.
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Chapter
VIII.—Conclusion.
For, concerning the honours which widowhood enjoys
in the sight of God, there is a brief summary in one saying of His
through the prophet: “Do thou426
| 426 So Oehler reads,
with Rhenanus and the mss. The other edd.
have the plural in each case, as the LXX. in the passage referred to
(Isa. i. 17,
18). |
justly to the widow and to the orphan; and come ye,427
| 427 So Oehler reads,
with Rhenanus and the mss. The other edd.
have the plural in each case, as the LXX. in the passage referred to
(Isa. i. 17,
18). |
let us reason, saith the Lord.”
These two names, left to the care of the divine mercy, in proportion as
they are destitute of human aid, the Father of all undertakes to
defend. Look how the widow’s benefactor is put on a level
with the widow herself, whose champion shall “reason with the
Lord!” Not to virgins, I take it,
is so great a gift given. Although in their case perfect
integrity and entire sanctity shall have the nearest vision of the face
of God, yet the widow has a task more toilsome, because it is easy not
to crave after that which you know not, and to turn away from what you
have never had to regret.428
| 428 Desideraveris.
Oehler reads “desideres.” | More glorious
is the continence which is aware of its own right, which knows what it
has seen. The virgin may possibly be held the happier, but the
widow the more hardly tasked; the former in that she has always
kept “the good,”429
the latter in that
she has found “the good for herself.” In the former
it is grace, in the latter virtue, that is crowned. For some
things there are which are of the divine liberality, some of our own
working. The indulgences granted by the Lord are regulated by
their own grace; the things which are objects of man’s striving
are attained by earnest pursuit. Pursue earnestly, therefore, the
virtue of continence, which is modesty’s agent; industry, which
allows not women to be “wanderers;”430
frugality, which scorns the world.431
Follow
companies and conversations worthy of God, mindful of that short verse,
sanctified by the apostle’s quotation of it, “Ill
interviews good morals do corrupt.”432
| 432 A verse said to be
Menander’s, quoted by St. Paul, 1 Cor. xv. 33; quoted again, but somewhat differently
rendered, by Tertullian in b. i. c. iii. |
Talkative, idle, winebibbing, curious tent-fellows,433
| 433 i.e., here “female
companions.” |
do the very greatest hurt to the purpose of widow-hood. Through
talkativeness there creep in words unfriendly to modesty; through
idleness they seduce one from strictness; through winebibbing they
insinuate any and every evil; through curiosity they convey a spirit of
rivalry in lust. Not one of such women knows how to speak of the
good of single-husbandhood; for their “god,” as the apostle
says, “is their belly;”434
and so, too,
what is neighbour to the belly.
These
considerations, dearest fellow-servant, I commend to you thus
early,435
handled throughout superfluously indeed,
after the apostle, but likely to prove a solace to you, in that (if so
it shall turn out436
| 436 i.e., if I be called
before you; comp. c. i. | ) you will cherish my
memory in them.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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